You know, when I was younger I was sooooooo trendy and cutting edge and funky. The older I get, the more I go for a nice v-neck shirt, an A-line skirt and stilettos. But even in my most tweener years, I don’t think I would have understood this:

A moderately attractive woman with a very toned body is wearing slabs of meat as a fashion statement. Wha??

As regular readers know, Mike and I have been trying to increase our level of fitness here at the Kitty Den. Since I gained weight while Mike was in Charlotte, I’m also trying to eat a bit healthier; “no lard butts in bikinis,” that’s the motto! So far so good on the exercise; Mike’s getting used to his FiveFingers (and thanks to everyone who chimed in with advice!) and we haven’t once had to donate to the as-yet-unspecified charity. (I still think PETA is the best choice — especially since most people who haven’t dug into the nasty side of PETA think it’s a wonderful organization, and EXACTLY the kind of org I would normally support — but I’m just not sure Mike can stomach it.)

I’ve also started tracking my food intake (thank you, free “sparkpeople” app!). Trying to calorie-ize every bite of food that goes into my mouth led me to three results:

1) I bought a food scale

2) I realized I snack more than I thought I did

3) I decided to try and get more protein into my diet.

In line with 3), I went ahead and bought this:

I figured that I could replace my normal afternoon snack of reduced-fat string cheese and fat-free yogurt with a protein-rich snack, which would make it easier to last until dinner without chewing on my fingers. Or the cat. (Though cat-ears are HIGHLY nommable and protein-rich, for the record.)

Nom my ears. You know you want to.

The package arrived Monday and I optimistically chose the Mocha Cappuccino flavor, poured it into a cup of coffee and mixed it with a mini-mixer I’d bought especially for the occasion. It foamed beautifully, looking exactly like an expensive cappuccino machine had lovingly whipped it into a frothy lather purely for my delectation.

I took a sip.

Ack! Chalk! Gack!

Okay, well, I expected it to be a bit chalky. Powder shakes often are, especially protein-rich ones.

I took a bigger sip.

I chewed and swallowed.

Holy crap! Grits! Muck! Drinking sand!

The whey stuff CONGEALED and after the first three sips I was trying to choke down pea-sized nuggets of powder.

I think I managed to down about six sips before the rest went down the drain.

Folks, any ideas? Shall I mix it with oatmeal or grits and eat it with a spoon???

So, I was all excited about my little RSS feed-things in the left sidebar. WAS. Past tense. Because I’m finding that it’s randomly creating links to the new posts as they pop up, especially in blogspot.

Grrrr. Not that I mind link-whoring, but I’d like it to be intentional!

I’ve taken down some of the links to blogspot and I’ll try to fix this issue later tonight. If I’m randomly linking to every post you publish, please drop me a comment and let me know!